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I ask only once a year: please help the Internet Archive today. Right now, we have a 2-to-1 Matching Gift Campaign, so you can triple your impact!The average donation is $45. If everyone reading this chips in just $5, we can end this fundraiser today. All we need is the price of a paperback book to sustain a non-profit website the whole world depends on. We’re dedicated to reader privacy so we never track you. We never accept ads. But we still need to pay for servers and staff. I know we could charge money, but then we couldn’t achieve our mission. To bring the best, most trustworthy information to every internet reader. The Great Library for all. The Internet Archive is a bargain, but we need your help. If you find our site useful, please chip in. Thank you.
—Brewster Kahle, Founder, Internet Archive
Dear Internet Archive Supporter,
I ask only once a year: please help the Internet Archive today. Right now, we have a 2-to-1 Matching Gift Campaign, so you can triple your impact!The average donation is $45. If everyone reading this chips in just $5, we can end this fundraiser today. All we need is the price of a paperback book to sustain a non-profit website the whole world depends on. We’re dedicated to reader privacy so we never track you. We never accept ads. But we still need to pay for servers and staff. I know we could charge money, but then we couldn’t achieve our mission. To bring the best, most trustworthy information to every internet reader. The Great Library for all. The Internet Archive is a bargain, but we need your help. If you find our site useful, please chip in. Thank you.
—Brewster Kahle, Founder, Internet Archive
Dear Internet Archive Supporter,
I ask only once a year: please help the Internet Archive today. Right now, we have a 2-to-1 Matching Gift Campaign, so you can triple your impact!The average donation is $45. If everyone chips in just $5, we can end this fundraiser today. All we need is the price of a paperback book to sustain a non-profit library the whole world depends on. We’re dedicated to reader privacy. We never accept ads. But we still need to pay for servers and staff. I know we could charge money, but then we couldn’t achieve our mission. To bring the best, most trustworthy information to every internet reader. The Great Library for all. We need your help. If you find our site useful, please chip in.
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A favorite of radio kids, and many adults as well, Dick Tracy on the radio
was a long running serial that was based on the very popular Dick Tracy of
newspaper comic strip fame. Dick Tracy was the star of movies and several
animation series as well, including a 1970's TV animation adaptation that was
as true to the original Chester Gould newspaper comic strip as was the radio
version. Dick Tracy had debuted in the Detroit Mirror in 1931. Soon it hit New
York and Chicago, in the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. By 1937,
the comic strip appeared in over 700 newspapers. With a strong, built-in
audience, Dick Tracy was perfect serial.
First developed for radio in 1934 for the New England region, the show was
an immediate hit and was then done on from 1935-37. Republic Pictures began the
Dick Tracy cliffhangers in the movies, which also helped kids get excited about
following his adventures on radio. Fifteen minute serials were produced for a
full five nights a week in 1938-'39. In 1939, it went to a half-hour, usually
playing on Saturdays. With WWII developing, Dick Tracy was put on hold. After a
few years, the show again took to the air, and continued from 1943 through '48,
first developed as a fifteen minute serial, and then expanding to a half hour
in the mid 1940s. Dick Tracy was featured in a series of novels and
"Little Big Books" at the time, as well as the Republic cliffhangers
and movies.
Chester Gould's newspaper strip featured singular thugs and inventive plots
all drawn in a flat, modern-looking cartoon. The strip was heavy on scientific
crime detection, using the lab to sift through clues, and ultra-modern
inventive devices such as Dick Tracy's two-way wrist radio (1946) that were
wild then, and are very big in commercials right now as pager/cell phones
(almost wristwatch size.)
On the radio serial, the "good guys" were Dick Tracy,
"protector of law and order," his sidekick Pat Patton, and Tracy's
investigative team Junior Tracy and Tess Trueheart. The strip and show also
starred bizarre villains, with such names as The Blank, Little Face Finney,
Pruneface, The Brow and Shakey. The radio cases were always exciting, with
plenty of trouble, cliff hanging and narrow escapes.
